The Dominion - 37

June

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 07:48:41 +0000

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None of Our Business

Tue, 06 Jun 2006 13:46:21 +0000

Canada's role in the world and the business press

Hugo Chavez: makes the news when he affects the bottom line. photo: Agência Brasil

Did you know that Royal Bank (RBC), Bell Canada Enterprises (BCE), Alcan and SNC-Lavalin all share board members? Or that Yves Fortier, Canada's former ambassador to the UN, sits on the boards of RBC and Alcan? Where does one go for the plain facts about Canada's tiny, interconnected corporate and political elite?

The Globe and Mail business pages, of course. A long story in October of 2002 reported that "directors travel in small world". "The power circles are very small," a professor at a business school was quoted as saying. "I think within a small community, there's a lot of peer pressure," another business professor told the paper.

What was the focus of the article? Was Globe reporter Janet McFarland concerned about the rapid consolidation of corporate power and its effect on policy? Was the editor who assigned the story wondering whether the pressure to announce record profits would lead corporations to act against the public good?

The report was, in fact, concerned with the possibility that too much overlap in boards could have a negative effect on corporations' accountability to their shareholders. Which is to say, ultimately, a negative impact on the corporations' obligation to maximize profits.

Outside the business pages, we quickly learn that Canadian business is not news. Take the CBC's understanding of "Canada's role in the world," for example.

In February of 2004, the CBC's flagship program The National ran "A World of Difference," a series dedicated to coverage of Canadians volunteering abroad to "make a difference". Installments carried titles like "Hope in Bolivia" and "a school of joy and hope" in Afghanistan.

Two years later, CBC debuted "Our World," a new series with a similar focus. The National's anchor Peter Mansbridge introduced Our World, saying that viewers had asked for more coverage of what Canadians were doing abroad. Since receiving this feedback, the CBC has run reports on a Canadian-funded clinic for disabled children in Haiti, efforts of Canadian soldiers to help Afghan children "regain their sense of stability," and a Quebec-sponsored program to "bringing new skills and hope to troubled youth." A cynic could be forgiven for sensing an emerging theme. (The CBC is hardly alone in this, however, and other networks often feature similar programming.)

What does business coverage have to do with the CBC's--let's be honest--nationalist propaganda?

If one is actually interested in understanding literally perennial topics like "Canadians making a difference," or "Canada's role in the world," a first step would be to take note of the largest Canadian corporations operating abroad. These include SNC Lavalin, Alcan, and banks like RBC. Canadian mining operations span the globe, extracting billions of dollars worth of resources from countries in Africa, South America, Europe, Asia, and the Pacific Islands. Oil companies are similarly globally implicated, and engineering firms--led by SNC Lavalin--do hundreds of millions of dollars in business on third-world megaprojects and arms manufacturing alike.

By any objective measure, these corporation are significant--if not defining--components of "Canada's role" globally.

Instead, the CBC's correspondent in Haiti speaks of a Canadian-sponsored effort to "ease pain in a country that offers its weakest citizens nothing," but we hear nothing of engineering firms and defense contractor SNC Lavalin's "role" in getting a $20 million contract for the new embassy in Haiti. Nor do we hear about the Canadian-backed, non-elected "interim" government's dealings with Montreal-based mining company St. Geneviève Resources.

Last December, the Globe and Mail's business section reported that "dozens of Ecuadoreans opposed to a Canadian mining firm's copper venture burned down a building at the company's South American project site." The article was not concerned with finding out why the protesters were so opposed to the mining project; what made the story "news" was that it affects Canadian investors' interests. For the same reason coverage of the story did not appear outside the business section: the Globe's editors determined that it is not news for the non-investor Canadians.

Perhaps the most salient discrepancy shows itself in coverage of the governments of Hugo Chavez in Venezuela and Evo Morales in Bolivia. While the business press regularly features in-depth coverage of the effects of diverting oil revenues into health and education programs, "international coverage" usually makes do with a well-edited news brief.

When coverage is more prominent, the exception tends to prove the rule.
Last October, the Globe and Mail featured a front-page article about how Venezuela's subsidized fuel prices "worsens air pollution," "[costs] the government billions of dollars," and "helps finance Colombia's outlawed right-wing paramilitary forces."

Thousands of environmentally-minded readers of the "national newspaper" of the world's fourth-highest per capita emitters of greenhouse gases were undoubtedly disappointed to discover that the article did not signal a shift in its de facto policy of not covering Canada's billions of dollars in subsidies to oil companies.

Except in the business section, where environmental impact is relevant when it affects profits.

Dru Oja Jay reads the business section, and finds the news that non-investor Canadians rarely see.

Judges steering Egyptian reform

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 21:31:27 +0000

In an attempt to gain an influence-free judiciary and independent press in Egypt, protesters-- including over 300 judges and hundreds of journalists-- staged three major demonstrations in May.

According to the Gulf Times, "judges threatened not to supervise parliamentary elections [in September] in order to pressure the government into granting them full independence from the executive." The absence of judges supervising the elections would have put the government in danger of violating the Egyptian constitution.

Confrontations between the Egyptian government, judges and the press began surfacing in 2005 with allegations of massive vote fraud and election rigging in previous elections.

Since then, a number of arrests and disciplinary actions-- including withholding of wages and firings-- have allegedly been taken against judges, journalists and protesters.

The protests in May were in response to the prosecution of two senior Egyptian judges and have been met with violence and mass arrests by Egyptian police.

Aljazeera

Gulf Times

BBC

United Nations Development Program

A Novel Cause

Mon, 05 Jun 2006 20:43:32 +0000

"North of 9/11" is a book about war, racism, and hysteria - and the people who fight against them

The events themselves may be fictional, but the world of "North of 9/11" will be familiar to Montreal activists.. photo: The cover of "North of 9/11"

Something has been missing from the portrayal of the political landscape in North America. While there are plenty of statistics on the impacts of corporate globalization, war and racism, there are few stories about the people who risk injury, imprisonment and even their lives to fight against them in North America. Activist, academic, and now author David Bernans, attempts to address this omission with his new novel North of 9/11.

Set in Montréal, Québec, North of 9-11 describes the idealism and determination of many of the young would-be revolutionaries in the city. The novel revolves around the Murphy family: Sarah - the 19 year-old raging granddaughter –and her parents: a reactionary father who works in public relations for military contractors, and a liberal mother, sympathetic to her daughter's beliefs.

Bernans' main storyline involves a group of activists plotting direct action in response to the prevailing climate of panic and warmongering post September 11. The target of the action is chosen based on information that young Sarah Murphy gleans from her right-wing American father. The tense exchanges between activists help the reader understand the risks of and reasons for taking direct action.

The events themselves may be fictional, but the world in which they take place will be familiar to Montreal activists. Details of the Concordia University campus and student union will jump out at activists who spend their days there--the effect is less compelling however for readers who haven't taken part in Montréal political battles.

These descriptions do not detract from a story that moves smoothly from family dinners where daughter and father debate US imperialism, to debates between student activists and engineering students on the moral implications of a University hosting corporations that profit from war, to arguments between privileged white activists and their Arabic and Muslim counterparts about tactics post 9/11.

To the uninitiated, the true value of the story is the insight into the hearts and minds of young activists who have cut their teeth during the era of "anti-globalization." Along the way, the reader also learns about the personal motivations and internal conflicts of some of the other elements in the leftist landscape: of fence-sitters like her mother, of student radicals of 35 years earlier, and of members of Solidarity for Palestinian Human Rights. The story is punctuated with dialogue-driven history lessons about the US backed coup that overthrew democracy in Chile and the 1982 massacre of thousands of Palestinian men, women and children in Lebanon. Through Bernans' characters, we start to see the faces – and not just the fists - of those fighting for justice.

By bringing characters, people and movements to life, David Bernans has given readers an opportunity to understand why so many choose a life of struggle over a life of ease. In doing so, Bernans offers a valuable perspective. He also provides something far more important: hope - and perhaps a reason for the reader herself to join the struggle.

Macdonald Stainsby reviews David Bernans' first book: a novel about war, racism, and hysteria - and the people who fight against them.

No White Is Illegal?

Fri, 02 Jun 2006 02:34:25 +0000

Fredericton police are accused of racism after arrests at "No One Is Illegal" march

Asaf Rashid believes he was targeted in part because of his Pakastani background. photo: IMC Maritimes

A small, peaceful demonstration for immigrant and refugee rights in Fredericton themed 'no one is illegal' ended when police illegally arrested four protesters on May 27.

"Out of the four people who were arrested, I was the only one who was physically taken down and hand cuffed," said Asaf Rashid, a PHD forestry student, who believes he was targeted in part because of his Pakistani background.

"An officer twisted my right arm behind my back and forced me to the ground, pushing his knee into me and then I was cuffed," said Rashid. "I didn't put up any resistance at all. I made no effort to fight back and I was still physically taken down and handcuffed."

The other three arrestees weren't people of color and none of them were handcuffed or assaulted. Instead, officers told them they were under arrest and marched them to police vehicles. All four arrestees say the police never read them their rights.

Duane Rousselle, another arrestee, was re-united with Rashid in a police interrogation room. "I was pretty much the only one there to witness how they grilled Asaf," said Rousselle, a 24 year old sociology student. "They asked if his family had status, if he was a citizen, if his brother had been deported."

"They didn't ask me, or anyone else who was white, those sorts of questions; they were obviously racially motivated," said Rousselle.

For their part, the Fredericton Police Department is keeping quiet. "Basically, our position on this right now is we're going to be reviewing the incident and not commenting any further on the matter at this point," said Constable Bobbi Simmons.

Since the arrest, New Brunswick media outlets, like CBC Radio and the Daily Gleaner, have asked police some tough questions about race relations and aggressive arrests, but managed to miss the point of the demonstration itself.

"Attention just focused on the arrest of this activist screaming racism, a nice human interest story - not on the struggles of non-status people," said Rashid, who helped organize the New Brunswick demonstration to coincide with 'no one is illegal' events in Montreal, Vancouver and other cities across Canada. The Fredericton protest was part of a national campaign to get status for all workers and families living in the shadows of Canadian society. The campaign is demanding the regularization of all non-status persons; an end to deportations; an end to the detention of migrants, immigrants and refugees; and the abolition of security certificates.

The federal government doesn't know how many non-status people are currently living in Canada, but some officials estimate 200,000 people.

Without papers and the legalized rights that come with them, non-status people are an easily exploitable workforce. "Think of who's picking fruit, working in the backs of restaurants or doing domestic labor... we know our economies are dependent on migrant and non-status labor," said Jaggi Singh, a member of No One Is Illegal in Montreal. "If you can't claim status, it's that much easier to exploit people and it's that much harder for you to claim your full rights and your full dignity," said Singh.

In the summer of 2005 Asaf Rashid and hundreds of others - including many who didn't have status themselves - marched 191 km from Montreal to Ottawa demanding status for all. "I met a lot of people who were non-status and had still taken action and demonstrated in the streets for their rights. We were all connected at that time," said Rashid.

"I saw people, met them, traveled with them and then suddenly, they're deported - gone," he said.

Fredericton police are accused of racism after arrests at a "No One Is Illegal" march. Chris Arsenault investigates.

Deport Injustice

Thu, 01 Jun 2006 14:58:36 +0000

Protests across Canada demand status for all undocumented people

Many demonstrators wore colourful bandanas and masks in solidarity with the many non-status migrants who need to hide their identity. photo: CMAQ

On the heels of massive demonstrations south of the border last month and several high-profile deportation cases in Toronto, hundreds of Canadians took to the streets in late May as part of a national day of action against the deportation and detention of migrants and refugees.

"Immigration has always been a struggle for people coming to Canada," said Aaron Lakoff, a member of Montreal's chapter of Solidarity Across Borders, the main organizer of the event. Despite the increased profile immigration has recently been given in the mainstream media, Lakoff said the fight to protect immigrant rights in Canada is nothing new. "We're just looking for ways to continue and sustain the struggle," he said.

Protesters in Vancouver, Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal and Fredericton called for status for all undocumented workers and their families living in Canada and for the abolition of security certificates.

Although it is difficult to place a number on non-status people in Canada, it is estimated that around 500,000 people live and work illegally in Canada. The issue is one of justice for many community advocacy groups and activists who took part in the march; if people work and contribute to Canadian society, they should be able to access the benefits of living in Canada, such as health care and secure working conditions.

"People are migrating here because often times they have to leave the places that they're living," Lakoff said. "They're essentially the backbone of this economy, but we don't let them live with the same dignity that others do. If we want to call this a democracy, we need to give these people the same rights we have."

Lakoff believes the way that we, as Canadians, view our own immigration system has to be linked to the way we view our international relations. According to Lakoff, Western governments often impose foreign policies that make it difficult for people to stay in their own countries. Lakoff gives Haiti as an example, a country wherein, he said, Canada supported a coup d'état of a democratically elected government.

"Canada needs to be able to accept the human impact of these policies that force people to show up at our doorstep," he said. "[Government policy] totally disregards the reality of immigration, where millions of people are forced to cross borders every year."

Most refugee claimants have three separate processes by which they can apply to remain in Canada, beginning first by appearing before the Immigration and Refugee Board of Canada, a government appointed tribunal.

A Refugee Appeal Division was supposed to have been implemented as part of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act in 2002, but has been delayed ever since due to a high volume of claims. The government's position now, under Immigration Minister Monte Solberg, is that the current system is in accord with the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and remains fair and generous to claimants.

Status For All marches took place in Vancouver, Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, and Fredericton. photo: CMAQ

The case of the Lizano-Sossa family recently made headlines when 15-year-old Kimberley Lizano-Sossa and her 14-year-old brother Gerald were pulled out of their Toronto high-school on April 27 by Canada Border Service and taken to a detention centre.

The siblings and their parents have been living illegally in Canada for five years, since they came from Costa Rica. Their refugee claim was rejected in 2002 and now the family is set to be deported back to Costa Rica on July 2.

Advocacy groups have denounced the raid on the Toronto high school, calling it an unfair tactic by immigration officials to bait the children's parents.

"Undocumented workers are the people helping Canada's economy and taking the low-paying jobs," said Kimberley Lizano-Sossa, who took part in the Status For All march in Toronto.

She is scared to return to Costa Rica, where the family was threatened because of a family relation to an undercover police officer, she said.

"Hopefully we'll get a positive response from the government in the next couple weeks," Lizano-Sossa said.

Professor François Crepeau, who works with the Centre for International Studies at the University of Montreal, believes Canada needs to recognize that immigrants, refugees and migrants are all a distinct part of the country's social fabric. That said, Crepeau doesn't believe Canada will take the step of granting status to all undocumented people.

"The issue is that many of these people work here…which means there is a labour market and there is a need that they're fulfilling," he said. "But [granting them all status] is not realistic politically under the current government."

"If we had to pay each worker minimum wage, benefits, or overtime, it would cost us, and [Canada] is not ready to do that," Crepeau said. "It is, in part, exploitation. There is a big hypocrisy in that."

Crepeau said there are flaws in the country's immigration system, namely not having in-house appeal mechanisms under Canada's refugee board.

Sima Zeheri, founder of the Toronto chapter of the advocacy group No One Is Illegal, agreed that the Canadian immigration system is deeply flawed – it's a system she has experienced first-hand. Zeheri said that without a proper appeals system, there is little opportunity for people to access documentation, leaving newcomers "completely vulnerable."

"These families, who have been completely integrated into Canadian society… are not able to benefit from the same services that are offered to everyone else," Zeheri said. "We need to come up with a solution to this humanitarian crisis."

No One Is Illegal say they have repeatedly written letters, sent petitions and organized delegation with the Immigration Ministry and have been largely ignored. The Status For All march was a way to draw attention to a very serious issue, Zeheri said.

"[The march] signifies the beginning of a tremendous mobilization," she said.

Protesters across Canada demand status for all undocumented people. Sarah Rogers finds out why.

Unions support boycott of "apartheid" Israel

Wed, 31 May 2006 17:35:48 +0000

At its annual meeting on May 27, the Ontario division of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE)--a union that represents over 200, 000 workers--unanimously passed a resolution to boycott Israel, reported The Globe and Mail.

The vote signals CUPE Ontario's support of an international campaign demanding that Israel recognize the Palestinians' right to self-determination. CUPE also condemned what they called Israel's "apartheid wall," saying it is illegal under international law.

"Boycott, divestment and sanction worked to end apartheid in South Africa," Katherine Nastovski, chairwoman of the international solidarity committee for CUPE Ontario, told the CBC.

"We believe the same strategy will work to enforce the rights of Palestinian people, including the right of refugees to return to their homes and properties."

On May 29, two days after the CUPE vote, Britain's biggest lecturers' union backed a call for a boycott of Israeli universities in protest at its government's "apartheid" policies towards Palestine, reported the Belfast Telegraph

Tom Hickey, a philosophy lecturer from Brighton University who proposed the motion, said there were "important and ringing similarities" between the policies of the Israeli government and the apartheid regime in South Africa.

The Indian Act's Corrupt

Tue, 30 May 2006 01:22:14 +0000

Resisting the roots of corruption in Tobique First Nations

Settler culture changed the traditional Maliseet way of life. photo: Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

"All the money is gone here," says Allen Squalis. "We are, at a very conservative estimate, $10 million in the hole."

Squalis is part of the Tobique First Nation, a Maliseet community, in Western New Brunswick. According to Squalis, there's no good reason for the Tobique First Nation to be in debt: the Tobique High Stakes Casino – a community-owned operation - has grossed over $15 million over the past 3 years.

The casino was built to generate funds which would alleviate poverty thus improving social conditions in the community. Instead, Squalis and his supporters say, casino revenues are being squandered on a select few.

In 1999, then Auditor General Denis Desautels warned that the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs risked compounding existing poverty and despair on Native reserves by failing to account for how money is being spent.

According to Squalis, for 13 years casino revenues have been unaccounted for, and calling for accountability leads nowhere.

In desperation, Squalis and 10 other Maliseet community members took over the Tobique casino on June 7, 2005. The group occupied the casino for almost two weeks to bring attention to the rampant corruption they said was squandering the community's resources.

Chief Paul, Councilor Gerald Bear, and Councilor Stone Bear filed a statement of claim with the Court of Queen's Bench alleging that the 11 individuals involved in the casino takeover had taken funds from the casino and damaged the casino's video lottery terminals.

The 11 community members defend their actions as protecting the casino revenues, which belong to the community. They are concerned that managers have failed to distribute net profits among community members.

"I also have dedicated a year and a half of my life to get accountability in our community so my son will not have to go through what we did," says Squalis. He is concerned by the poverty and desperation that afflicts the Tobique First Nation. In the last year, there have been three suicides and at least five suicide attempts in the Maliseet community which consists of an on-reserve population of about 1,300 members.

The 2005 "occupation" of the casino is not the first. Just before Easter in 2004, a group of single mothers took action in a similar fashion to get a share of casino revenues. In November 2000, outraged elders shut down the casino. The outrage was triggered when the chief and councilors made a decision to award themselves salaries of $1,000 a week, after informing elders on the reserve that their monthly support cheques would cease.

Much of the responsibility for the community's finances - and its corruption – lies with Chief Paul, says Squalis. Cited as part of the evidence are two cheques totaling $2200 from the casino coffers, payable to the Chief's niece, Gillian Paul.

Chief Paul is the elected chief of Tobique First Nation, as recognized under the Indian Act. According to Squalis, however, the Indian Act deprives First Nations of their traditional ways of selecting representatives. "I do believe [that] if we selected a Chief in a traditional way that things most likely would be different. ... These non-aboriginal elections and officials are just an arm of the government and the chief and council are the puppets. Favoritism, nepotism and jealousy to name a few fun things is what it brings to our communities," observes Squalis.

"It only divides us--which is the main purpose isn't it?"

Kim Peterson finds the People of Tobique First Nation resisting corruption, and tracing the problem back to the Indian Act.

Strong Nudes

Fri, 26 May 2006 14:30:41 +0000

Sexuality and Disability

It should come as no surprise that people with disabilities have healthy sexualities and sex lives – but it does. According to Bob Gutler, a writer for Bent Magazine, this demonstrates "the power of a Culture Machine, which sells Sex while simultaneously limiting Eros to the smallest possible range of expression." Twelve per cent of people in
Canada are living with disabilities – both visible and invisible. Whether it's sex care workers specifically for people with disabilities, Bob's Flanagan's performance art and poetry, or Internet dating forums for people with 'life challenges,' people are speaking and acting out against the Culture Machine that excludes 'sexual minorities.'

One such person is Belinda Mason-Lovering, an artist who complicates the classical view, use, and revere for the classical nude with her photographic essay Intimate Encounters. The men and women Mason-Lovering pictures are people with physical, intellectual, learning, psychiatric and neurological disabilities. The project was collaborative in the sense that Mason-Lovering worked to create sets, compositions and finished images that represent elements significant to each person who posed. The "nude" in each photograph leaves the classical passive-object role prescribed to both nudes in art and people with disabilities. In the words of its creators, "Intimate Encounters explores the myriad connections between disability and sexuality. A sense of our sexual selves is as vital to our existence as the air we breathe. This is the pervading message present in every image in the series. The quest is to create images that 'tell a thousand words' and which reflect sexual diversity without tokenism."

Saul Food
Saul and Anonymous
Sydney NSW, Australia
2000

"Sexual Being is defined by spirit, not body. Exploring ways we best fit together is my career -- a clear choice of pleasure over prejudice."

"Sexual Being is defined by spirit, not body. Exploring ways we best fit together is my career -- a clear choice of pleasure over prejudice."
Saul is a sex worker and sex surrogate who works with men who have disabilities. Saul has been a sex worker for many years. He has worked in New Zealand and Australia. In the tradition of the ancient temple prostitutes, his career is his spiritual vocation -- "If someone told me I couldn't do this work anymore, I'd cry."

The Explorers
Titi Chartay and Carolyn Dearing
Sydney NSW, Australia
2000

"We must understand the past with clarity; there is nothing more heinous than dragging the scourge of fundamentalist belief systems into our future. Oppression in any form is an evolutionary dead-end."

A smiling veteran of Gay Liberation, the Vietnam Moratorium and Women's Liberation, Titi maintains her activism to this day. A Mardi Gras 78'er, she now applies her experience to the area of disability. A writer, musician and theatre artist, she has a strong practical streak that means she is as at ease repairing a car radiator as she is critiquing literary theory. She is a great believer in the subversive value of satire and maintains through her disdain of current dance music that she is not a Luddite. She has been fond of dinosaurs since childhood and of Motown, all her life.

Titi uses crutches in order to be mobile.

Caroline Dearing is a homeopath with a penchant for ballroom dancing. Her commitment to social justice issues and appreciation of the practical strategic thrust now sees her subverting the legal system from within. She believes that the "sledgehammer approach" of law is often the only way that the rights of the marginalized and the ignored can be respected and as such, is a strong advocate of law reform. She loves a groove to a Motown song and tolerates the presence of dinosaurs at home with whimsical forbearance.

Moment
David Toole with his partner Cherylee Houston
Manchester, UK
2002

"Until becoming a performer 10 years ago, I was not really aware of my body as such and the thought of someone finding me sexually attractive would make me laugh.

Recently, however, I have become happier with my body, having spent years giving permission to people to obviously stare when on stage......
Having a good relationship and an opportunity to share intimate moments has been something that has only occurred over the last few years of my life as people with a disability are for some reason not seen as a sexual being......"

David came into dance through workshops with CandoCo Dance Company in 1992. While working with them, he studied for a year at the Laban Centre for Movement and Dance, receiving a Professional Diploma in Community Dance in 1993. Six years of national and international touring with CandoCo followed, until 1999, when he decided to try new experiences. In 1995, David had his first taste of theatre when he played the part of Puck in Benjamin Britten's opera of A Midsummer Night's Dream. This was followed a year later with an appearance in the Sally Potter film The Tango Lesson, playing the part of the designer.
David's most recent performances have been with Graeae Theatre Company in 2000 and also 2001, playing the parts of Edgar in The Fall of the House of Usher and Deflores in The Changeling respectively. In the summer of 2000, he worked with DV8, creating and performing the piece Can We Afford This for the Sydney Arts Festival prior to the 2000 Olympics. David now works as a freelance dancer, actor and workshop leader.

David has no legs due to complications at birth.

The full series can be found at Intimate Encounters.

A supplementary list of practical guides and resources for sexuality and disability: The Illustrated Guide to Better Sex for People with Chronic Pain by Robert Rothrok and Gabriella D'Amore, 1992, Restricted Access: Lesbians on Disability, edited by Victoria A. Brownworth and Susan Raffo, 2000, MS and Intimacy: Managing Specific Issues, by Tanya Radford, 2000, and Sex and Back Pain: Advice on Restoring Comfortable Sex Lost To Back Pain, by Lauren Andrew Hebert, PT, 1997.

For the more scholarly approach, there's The Sexuality and Disability Journal published by Springer-Netherlands. In one issue, articles range from "I Thought I was Less Worthy: Low Sexual and Body Esteem and Increased Vulnerability to Intimate Partner Abuse in Women with Physical Disabilities" to "In Vitro Effect of Ginseng Extract on Sperm Count."

Max Liboiron explores sexuality and disability through Belinda Mason-Lovering's photographic essay Intimate Encounters.

The Square Tomato Capital of Canada

Thu, 25 May 2006 15:44:14 +0000

Leamington, Ontario: "The Best Place To Live" For Who?

Leamington, Ontario is the "Tomato Capital of the World." photo: The Municipality of Leamington

The results are finally in. Leamington ON (pop. 25,000) is the best place to live in Canada. Or so says MoneySense Magazine, which found Leamington to be "Canada's best kept secret" after researching 108 communities of at least 10,000 people across the country.

Leamington topped most of the study's categories, including population growth, income per capita, employment, economic diversity, and housing prices. Leamington also scored big points for the weather.

With arguably the best climate in Canada, agricultural output is naturally Leamington's golden egg. In fact, Leamington boasts the single largest grouping of vegetable greenhouses in North America. Leamington's Economic Development Officer, Anne Miskovsky, says there are more greenhouses in Leamington than in the entire United States.

Leamington isn't called the tomato capital of Canada for nothing. Tomatoes are by far Leamington's largest greenhouse vegetable crop, supplying the local Heinz processing plant and supermarkets across North America.

Economic indicators of the MoneySense report show that Leamington benefits from robust and steady growth thanks to its agriculture sector. Greenhouses alone generate about $1 billion every year in revenue for the local economy. However, according to Chris Ramsaroop of Justice for Migrant workers (an Ontario-based NGO), little of that prosperity is being shared with a largely migrant workforce.

"The magazine ignores migrant workers because they are not included in any of the data sets from which the criteria are formed," says Ramsaroop. Though migrant workers spend several months of the year in Canada, they are not granted Canadian citizenship and thus were ignored by the MoneySense report.

Every year since 1966, thousands of Mexican guest workers have come to Leamington as part of the Canadian Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP). Many of these workers supply cheap labour to the lucrative tomato business thereby fueling local business development. According to Ramsaroop, migrant workers suffer from poor living and working conditions with little or no legal protection. He challenges MoneySense to spend a day in the life of a migrant worker to see if it matches the level of well-being trumpeted in the article.

An Ontario court recently ruled that farm workers are not permitted to unionize. While workers are allowed to form worker associations to voice their concerns, employers are not obliged to respond. Michael Fraser, National Director of the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Canada, says the decision by Ontario Superior Court Justice James Farley means that farm workers will continue to be exploited and treated like second-class citizens.

Workers have reported a variety of abuses, including badly maintained and crowded living quarters and exposure to unsafe levels of pesticides. Migrant workers often remain silent, however, fearing the loss of an income that is often crucial to their family in Mexico.

Leamington's model of development – one that favours economic efficiency over the well-being of its workforce – is much like the story of the square tomato.

When tomato producers sought to intensify production in the 1960s, they hired researchers to come up with something more efficient than the existing mechanized tomato picker. But rather than reinventing a tomato picker to fit the fragile contours of a ripe tomato, they reinvented the glorious red fruit to fit the picker. The result was a square tomato. This tasteless fruit turned out to be harmful to public health and the project was subsequently dropped.

Leamington has chosen to use migrant farm workers – people willing to work longer hours for lower wages than those in the domestic workforce – to power its economic engine. At the same time, these workers are denied the legal rights that would improve their quality of life.

"Any meaningful evaluation of a community's quality of life should certainly include the well-being of its workforce," says Ramsaroop, who notes MoneySense magazine missed an excellent opportunity to discuss the very real challenges facing migrant workers in Canada's tomato capital.

Leamington, Ontario was chosen as the "best place to live in Canada" by MoneySense Magazine. Van Ferrier asks, 'For who?'

June Books

Wed, 24 May 2006 13:16:38 +0000

The Watermelon Social:
Stories by Elaine McCluskey
Gaspereau Press: Kentville, NS, 2006

Don't mistake Elaine McCluskey's title for preciousness. "It used to be an ice cream social," a stout volunteer named Sally explains, "but we switched to watermelon." "Uh huh?" "Lactose intolerance." The events of this school fundraiser exemplify darker social nuances and characters' uneasy relationship to changed circumstance. Tough farm-raised children like the Strongest Woman in the World have acquiesced to strip malls and flat suburban marriage. Physicality is only strength or weakness, and literal strength has been replaced by material competition in a world of real and symbolic competitions where there's never a fair start. Here childhood longing gives way to rage, and when that exhausts itself, to despairing consent: "Georgie didn't mind not having money; he simply couldn't bear the sadness of being poor, the way it wore you down like shingles." McCluskey's beguiling, frequently comic descriptors allow bitter nuance to seep in slowly, and the accomplished structure evades false nostalgia. Each story is an isolated segment of memory, association, or perspective, and each reminds us that a moment can be experienced from any number of mental directions.
--Jane Henderson

Aiken Drum
Peter Sanger
Gaspereau Press: Kentville, NS, 2006

There is no question that the poems in this collection are of the highest calibre; they're skillful and deftly wrought, with a plethora of expertly executed poetic devices. Sanger is a poet's poet, prey to both the advantages and dangers that the term suggests. Read about a "jay clack, heron screik, creak of crow wings/ oaring air, a whistle/ of black duck circling the old green skiff/ which puddered slicked Acheron" (from "After Monteverdi"), and take from it what you will, enjoying the language-play. Or else read Aiken Drum at a desk with an open dictionary, encyclopedia, and one finger stuck in the back of the book to refer to the pages of bibliographical references and notes. Or try "Reed Weaver", a beautiful portrait of a rural craftsman with a terminal illness completing his last two chairs: "… a smell of freshly/ baled hay in the mow and the sun at work,/ greening, still growing/ it seemed. Grains of green light inflected/ the cords as if ancient/ faith, present courage, continued. That autumn/ he died." For my money, Sanger is at his best when drawing inspiration from the world around him without allusion or influence.
--Matthew J. Trafford

Airstream Land Yacht
Ken Babstock
Anansi: Toronto, 2006

This third book is noticeably tougher than Babstock's others; something has changed. Hallmarks of earlier work—a preponderance of tough-guy subject matter (head injuries, bicycle theft, hockey), unabashedly playful "thing-poems," and the tendency to sling slang like a dockworker—are mostly absent here. What remains is the skill that makes Babstock one of today's most exciting poets, in Canada or elsewhere. His verbal acrobatics are in fine form, and that's all that matters. There's a new thoughtfulness here—Babstock has been reading American philosopher Daniel Dennett, whose "philosophy of mind" has obviously influenced pieces like "Materialist" and the book's heart-wrenching finale "Compatabilist" (about keeping tabs on a disaster-prone brother). Equally cerebral are several poems all titled "Explanatory Gap," and they're the best of the bunch, if the most impenetrable. These cover every quirk of human communication, from the perverse joy of being misunderstood to the impossibility of expressing love. And Babstock hasn't lost his sense of fun. Among other improbable twists, "Tarantella," a Valley-Girl monologue, successfully rhymes "l'angoscia del hora della" and "Danny Aiello." The effect is sharply observant, silly, and breathtaking.
--Regan Taylor

The New Canon: An Anthology of Canadian Poetry
Carmine Starnino, Ed
Signal: Montreal, 2006

Starnino's introduction identifies The New Canon as "a justification of prejudice, an attempt to isolate a tendency in Canadian poetry and make a boast for it." It has a fairly fine-edged axe to grind, i.e., a defence of formal devices like rhyme and metre, and a privileging of energetic sound-play over calmer cadences. It has its failings: notably, out of fifty poets, only ten live west of Ontario, a fact which highlights the accidents of proximity and publicity that make poets known. These may have favoured some poets undeservedly (Geoffrey Cook, of whose selected poems only "The Seals at Green Rock" measures up, Pino Collucio whose contributions are patchy). Most poets showcased here, however, are undeniably rightly championed. Having such a highly specific slice of "good writing" on hand is of inestimable value both for singling out the principles that make it tick (compression, verbal snap and crackle), and for warning of possible pitfalls (a degree of preciousness, too-cute construction). Karen Solie, Todd Swift, Barbara Nickel, Mark Sinnett, Tim Bowling, Iain Higgins; emerging and established writers whose work sets the reader's mind alight.
--Linda Besner

Henderson, Trafford, Taylor and Besner review new works by McCluskey, Sanger, Babstock and Starnino.

The New Chainsaw

Sat, 20 May 2006 14:16:41 +0000

Genetically engineered trees are the new threat to Canada's forests

Biotechnology could create a forest that kills insects. photo: GE Free Maine

The debate over genetically modified plants is moving beyond the fields and heating up under the forest canopy. Research on genetically engineered (GE) trees is well under way in many countries and GE trees may soon be a familiar presence in our forests. Orin Langelle and Anne Petermann of Global Justice Ecology have embarked on a campaign to stop GE tree research. According to Petermann, "GE trees are the greatest threat to the native forest since the chainsaw."

Currently, genetic research on trees is largely focused on developing methods that will make growing, harvesting and processing trees and their fruits and nuts, more 'efficient.' Scientists are experimenting with increasing levels of BT (a naturally occurring pesticide) in trees, increasing trees' resistance to herbicides, reducing levels of lignin (the substance which promotes rigidity) in trees, and making trees sterile. Each of these characteristics will have devastating consequences on the environment, says Petermann. "Biotechnology is so revolutionary that we know almost nothing about it…but so far everything has been one problem after another." For example, trees with increased levels of BT are supposed to result in a decrease in sprayed pesticides, but the opposite has been the case.

Trees with increased levels of BT result in the 'natural' selection of insects that are more resistant to the BT pesticide. This, in turn, necessitates higher pesticide levels, which can inadvertently kill non-target species. In the film A Silent Forest: The Growing Threat, Genetically Engineered Trees, David Suzuki explains that the BT pesticide will also leach into the ecological cycle through the roots, leaves, flowers, and pollen. "A forest that kills insects would be catastrophic," says Suzuki.

Scientists are also working on creating sterile GE trees to prevent pollination of native trees; however, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), it is nearly impossible to control gene flow through pollen and seed dispersal - even at a 95 percent success rate. As Petermann points out, "the sterilized trees are producing nothing, and the other 5% are still sending out tainted genes—it's a lose-lose situation." By bearing no flowers, fruit, or nuts, the sterile trees will offer little nourishment to the wildlife around them, and accidental contamination of native forests by the non-sterile - but genetically modified - trees will result in unforeseeable upsets to the ecological balance. For example, according to Greenpeace's website, "reduced lignin could speed up the decomposition of trees, altering soil ecology, structure and fertility."

The Nanjing Institute of Environmental Science has already found genes from the GE poplars in Xinjiang, China appearing in natural varieties, and researchers have found backyard and organic papaya trees in Thailand and Hawaii contaminated by pollen from nearby GE papaya plantations.

Despite the risks, the biotechnology industry is promoting genetic modification as a way to clean up the environment by addressing problems like climate change and soil contamination. Aziz Choudry, Board Member of Global Justice Ecology, says this is simply a public relations move meant to "make the insane palatable," and will not work.

"They say that they can engineer trees to suck mercury [from the soil]," says Petermann, "but then the mercury is just displaced into the air." As for global warming, GE trees could be engineered to take CO2 out of the air faster than normal trees, but GE plantations would replace native forestland, inhibiting biodiversity. "Studies done by the US Environmental Protection Agency and the World Resources Institute found that in tropical areas plantations at best sequester only 1/4 the carbon as native forests," says Petermann. GE trees wouldn't offset carbon emissions enough to make a serious impact on global warming, says Petermann. A better response to global warming, she says, would be to cut down on pollution.

On March 22nd, Langelle and Petermann attended the Convention on Biological Diversity in Brazil to seek a moratorium on the research and commercial use of GE trees. While they did not achieve an all-out ban, the UN did recommend that the precautionary approach be used with GE trees. The application of the precautionary principle would mean that GE technology must be proven safe and necessary before being used. Canada and the United States argued against the recommendation.

The United States has a large stake in biotechnology, with 150 test plots conducting over two thirds of the world's GE tree research. The Canadian government has not yet released genetically modified trees into the commercial sector, but has been testing GE black spruce, white spruce, and poplar in greenhouses and outdoors since 1997, with test plots in Quebec, New Brunswick, British Columbia, and Alberta.

So far, the only commercial GE tree plantations are in China, which released BT poplar trees in 2001. A destructive cycle led to China's GE forests, says Petermann. Initial deforestation in China led to desertification, leading to poplar plantations to curb the desertification. The poplar monoculture was vulnerable to insect infestation, so insect-resistant BT poplars were planted, which China did with the help of the UN Development Program and the FAO. "The accurate area of GM plantations cannot be assessed because of the ease of propagation and marketing of GM trees and the difficulty of morphologically distinguishing GM from non-GM trees," says Huoran Wang of the Chinese Academy of Forestry, "a lot of materials are moved from one nursery to another and it is difficult to trace them."

"It's completely unregulated," Langelle says. "People can buy these trees at any local nursery and plant them anywhere."

"Chile sees itself as a model for industrial forestry in the world," says Petermann, and may be next to commercialize GE trees. Genetic research is currently focused on the eucalyptus, which occupies a large portion of Chilean plantations. These plantations are already having devastating impacts on the environment and indigenous communities.

Plantations are water-intensive, which means they deplete groundwater, making it harder for other organisms and local communities to obtain water. The trees leach nutrients from the soil, reduce biodiversity and as monocultures, allow pests and diseases to flourish, requiring increased use of pesticides and herbicides. "Timber plantations are a scourge of the South," says Langelle, and combined with GE technology, plantations could have even more destructive effects. As the Greenpeace website reports, research is being done to create faster-growing trees, which would exacerbate problems of nutrient depletion and groundwater loss already present in plantations.

Petermann and Langelle are continuing their drive for a worldwide ban of GE trees at the next UN Convention on Biological Diversity in 2008. But Langelle's expectations of the UN are minimal, noting that "the UN is not really a body that's going to stop anything." Nevertheless, he believes that "people have the power to stop this."

GE trees are considered the new threat to global forests. Katie Shafley wonders why no one knows they're being grown in Canada.

Cheating on the Special Diet

Fri, 19 May 2006 12:55:28 +0000

McGuinty's recipe for Ontario's poor

There are 760 000 people living in Ontario who can't afford to provide for themselves or their children. photo: OCAP

"The Harris government cut welfare rates by twenty-one per cent in 1995, so today - with the cost of living higher - that's forty per cent that's missing from [social assistance] cheques," explains Rachel Huot, an organizer with the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP).

For over a decade, OCAP and countless other organizations have been calling on the Ontario government to raise the social assistance rates in the province. "We've seen nothing from either government - Conservative or Liberal," says Huot. "We began to feel that we were in a situation where we needed to take back some of the money that we were owed."

The situation Huot refers to is a desperate one for many people living in Ontario. "There are 760 000 people living in this province who can't afford to provide for themselves or their children. I got a call from a single mom with 8 kids who gets $600 per month to live on," says Huot. "The basic situation in Toronto is that, given the lack of rent control, and given the list of 71 000 people waiting for social housing, people can't pay rent with what they're getting."

It was only when OCAP learned of the Special Diet Allowance, however, that the group knew how it would 'take back' the cash that was desperately needed by the province's poorest people. "The Special Diet Allowance is part of provincial welfare and disability policy," explains Huot. "A government approved Special Diet is prescribed by a medical provider and then welfare and disability are required to pay for the special diet allowence.

This provision was not being advertised to welfare recipients and most had never even heard of it. As it turned out, however, just about everyone qualified for the allowance: sympathetic medical professionals understood that, if someone could not afford a healthy diet, it put them at risk of future illness. Welfare and disability recipients were eligible to receive up to $250 more a month.

"With special diet – people weren't buying Cadillacs, or anything like that - but for the first time a kid was able to eat meat or strawberries, or a teenage kid was able to get an allowance for the first time. Things that other people take for granted," says Huot.

OCAP understood the dramatic effect the Special Diet Allowance could have on people's lives, and began doing what the government was not – telling people about it.

In February 2005, OCAP began holding "Hunger Clinics." In community centres, apartment buildings and parks across the province, people could see a supportive medical provider who was able to prescribe the Special Diet Allowance.

Thousands of people signed up for the Allowance through OCAP's clinics. "Without [the clinics] the Somali ladies would not have even known about [the Special Diet Allowance]," says Amina Ali. Ali became involved with OCAP through the Hunger Clinics where she translated the forms and the doctor's questions for Somali women.

"So many of them have 6 or 7 kids. Their money from welfare was not enough," explains Ali. "Whatever you get goes to the rent, and then the rest - maybe 50 bucks - has to last. You know how stressful it is when you don't know what you're going to feed your kids tomorrow….It's not healthy.

"[The Special Diet Allowance] helped a lot," Ali continues. "They could buy fruits and vegetables and stuff that they didn't have before. They could afford to eat meat." Ali says the women she knew no longer needed the painkillers and sleeping pills they were using to cope with the stress. "The mothers were happy and the stress was less. "

"We had a few months [with the allowance] that went okay," says Ali. "Now it's back to the way it was."

In November 2005, the McGuinty government revised the application criteria for the Special Diet Allowance, drastically decreasing the number of people that are eligible. Minister of Social Services Sandra Pupatello said that people were cheating the system. "We have a problem with this because the system has to have integrity."

Huot does not see a system with integrity. " We want to be clear that when they talk about cheating, they're talking about single moms who were able to feed their children, or someone who was living on the street who could finally afford to get an apartment and keep it. These are the people who they were calling 'cheaters.'"

A Special – and Not-So-Special – Meal

"They love to eat rice and meat. Goat meat and rice and cook it for the kids. They love pasta with the sauce. Mostly they like rice and meat and vegetables and all that.

"Boil the goat meat and then you make a curry out of it. You make rice. Steam veggies and put it on top of the rice. And drink a lot of milk cause they love that too.

"Without speical diet supplement, no rice, no milk, no meat. Maybe a can of beans and bread if they can find it."

– Amina Ali on the meals her Somali friends cook for their children

Hillary Bain Lindsay learns that McGuinty's recipe for Ontario's poor has left thousands hungry for more.

Corporate business association supports Conservative budget

Tue, 16 May 2006 20:34:49 +0000

The federal budget, unveiled on May 2 by Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, has received the enthusiastic support of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives. The group, whose members lead companies administering nearly C$3.0 trillion in assets, according to their website, praised the Conservative government's sweeping tax cuts. CCCE Chief Executive and President Thomas D'Aquino said, "tax policy is the most powerful tool that governments have to encourage investment and job creation in Canadian communities, and this budget delivers more than two dollars in tax cuts for every dollar of new spending."

The federal budget has received criticism for its cuts to childcare programs, environmental programs, particularly concerning the Kyoto Accord, and its lack of funding for Native groups.

Polar bears added to endangered list

Tue, 16 May 2006 15:52:51 +0000

Long understood to be struggling under the pressure of changes in its habitat, the polar bear, a fierce symbol of the untamed North, has had its plight officially recognized. The animal was one of 530 species added to the World Conservation Union's "Red List" of endangered species.

The Union, or IUCN, is a multicultural, multilingual organization based in Gland, Switzerland, that has been documenting the conservation status of species and subspecies on a global scale. Their "Red List," which was released on May 2, had not been updated for two years.

The inclusion of the polar bear does not come as a surprise to many. Because they rely on sea ice for hunting, traveling and mating, the polar bears' existence is directly tied to the ongoing climate change. Studies on a population in Hudson Bay have shown that the population has declined by 15 per cent in the last 10 years and that polar bears in the region are skinnier than they used to be.

The World Conservation Union also predicts that polar bear populations will decline by more than 30 per cent in the next 45 years, unless the current global warming trend is halted, an event that seems unlikely given the increased energy demands worldwide.

The bleakness of the animals' plight is reflected in their new branding on the conservation list. Previously, the polar bear had been listed in the less-severe "Conservation Dependent" category. The 2006 list, however, has them listed as "Vulnerable." This is one level down from the "Endangered" ranking.

There has been talk of the polar bear being added to the U.S. Endangered List, a nomination that would force all federal decisions to consider the effects of their actions on the animal. So far, however, the mighty northern bear can only hope to remain "Vulnerable."

CBC North

National Geographic